Andre Worrell
Incoming chairman of ExporTT Ashmeer Mohammed said the agency is committed to improving trade with the European Union (EU) and arresting the current decline in trade between T&T and the EU.
Mohammed was speaking at the closing and dissemination seminar of the Fit 4 Europe Project at the Trinidad Hilton and Conference Centre yesterday. The project, Increasing Trade with The European Union, focused on helping local companies capture business opportunities in the EU.
Commenting on the nature of goods and services traded between the EU and T&T, he said: "In Trinidad our non-energy exports to the EU consists of food and beverage products inclusive of cocoa and coffee, printing and packaging, construction materials, personal care products, chemicals and musical instruments such as steel pans."
He said in the last two years trade with the EU had declined and this country's exports to its major EU trading partner, the United Kingdom, averaged US$6.2 billion in 2014 and US$4.3 billion in 2016, a decline of over 30 per cent.
"This represents goods exports only with food and beverage as the primary sector." Mohammed said. "ExporTT intends to reverse this trend by diversifying the portfolio of exports in keeping with its new mandate to cover services exports."
Mohammed said the Fit 4 Europe project not only offered several possibilities for firms engaged in manufacturing, but for those in the services sector as well.
"The Fit 4 Europe project introduced new modalities such as opportunities for our local producers in co-creation and repositioning in the global value chain, together with a focus on building strong international networks. I should also add that this is one of the few projects which featured a substantial number of participants from the services sector.
"We were able to experience the plethora of opportunities which exist for this sector internationally and will continue to work with our services exporters and organizations like TTCSI and CreativeTT to ensure that the opportunities are converted into business"